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Welcome back to thaddius’ Console Roast 2014 Edition. For those of you who are not aware this is a poll where you, the GBATemp user, get to vote on what GBATemp thinks is the worst console ever is. For more information check out the Rules section below.

Recap:

Not even a fair competition, if you ask me. After another flurry of votes a definite 'winner' has emerged. Congratulations to:

The Watara/QuickShot SuperVision! Despite the general ire toward the Game Gear or the Lynx it wasn't enough to distract people from what was really bothering them in the late 80s, early 90s: The Watara SuperVision. Maybe it's because it looks like supervision, which is a dumb name for a system (believe me, there are worse ones!), maybe it's because it offended the sensibilities of those who actually owned a Game Boy, of which the SuperVision was a pale comparison. Whatever the reason it has been selected as GBATemp's least favourite handheld of the fourth generation.

For more information on how the voting went, you can check out last week's thread here.

Intro:

As we ease out of the handhelds of the fourth generation we throw you toward the consoles. And thus we enter the great Console Wars of the early 90s. You might recognize a few of these but this generation was all about just two competitors in the Western market: The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Both had their flaws, and both had a dearth of amazing games. It's going to be very hard to say negative things about them, but then again I don't expect they'll make it to the next round.

My predictions: there's one obvious eyesore of a console that stands out this generation. And unlike previous generations where people would (most likely) blindly vote for the system they had never heard of, I think everyone here knows what it is and may have heard a thing or two about it. As always I encourage you to head out to YouTube and watch a few reviews on these consoles. You just might learn something.

But before we get to that, let's recap the rules no know ever reads!

Rules:

Warning: Spoilers inside!

There can only be one!

Each week I pit each console generation against itself to determine what the worst console of that generation was. Updates will hopefully be up every Thursday from now till the end.

We’re going to work our way up through consoles and handhelds until we reach the current generation. Once that’s all done, we’ll determine the worst console and the worst handheld. From there we choose the definitive GBATemp-approved WORST CONSOLE EVER.

Your only job, Mr. or Miss GBATemper, is to cast your vote for what you think the worst of the generation is. Please try to do some research, watch some videos, maybe play a few of these games on a (completely legitimate) emulator, and you just might learn a little about the weird amorphous blob that is video game history. But I can't (and won't) keep you from just shooting from the uninformed hip. You're also encouraged to explain your choice in the form of a response to this topic.

In the event of a tie, I (Sir thaddius prigg) will cast the deciding vote. It is my Roast after all...

Aggressive discussion is allowed, but please try to keep within the rules of the forums. Just try to have fun and don’t be a jerk, k?

Enough of that crap, time to get started!

This Week's Challengers:

The NEC PC Engine/Turbo GrafX-16/TurboGrafX
This machine with the a million names was released way back in 1987 in Japan as the PC Engine, in 1989 in North America as the TurboGrafX-16, and in 1990 in Europe as simply the TurboGrafX.

While it performed quite well in Japan, it never quite made a foothold anywhere else… You’d be very hard pressed to find anyone in the West who owned one growing up.

I’ve had very little experience with this console and am left with the impression that it’s a system only for Bonk and shmups.

NEC would end up releasing a bunch of peripherals, add-ons, and so many different versions of this console (mostly in Japan where people actually played the thing) that I'm not going to recount them here.

The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
Sega just couldn’t get a break. The NES rustled their Master System jimmies and when Sega released its Genesis in Japan it was in direct competition with the PC Engine, which it never really fared well against. The release of the Super FAMICOM just made things worse and relegated the Genesis to third place there.

Sega managed to eke out a portion of the North American and European (called the Mega Drive there) markets with their aggressive ad campaigns but could never quite catch up with the Super Nintendo. Sega would go on to released a dearth of versions of the console and add-ons for the system, none of which are worth getting into, IMHO.

I have always been kind of fascinated by the sound synthesizer on this machine. It sounds really odd. Kind of in a grating way. I’m sure that sound means nostalgia for some, but for me it was too heavy in the saw waves.

The SNK Neo Geo AES
Arcade games? At home?! On your TV?! How can you lose?? Well… when you launch the system at $650US you can kind of go wrong there.

The quality of the software was never in question - Neo Geo machines were some of the best machines at the local arcade. But the buy-in was just too much. The individual games and extra controllers weren’t cheap either. You really have to wonder what they were thinking.

The Super FAMICOM/Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Despite being 4 years late to the next gen party the SNES managed to outsell… well… everyone. Building off the raucous success of the NES, the SNES seemed to have been released at the right time.

Unlike Atari, Nintendo didn’t really suffer from the release of their second major console and was not stigmatized by lack of backwards compatibility and no one was really complaining about the system being released too soon after the NES. If anything people were clamouring for an update by 1991.

Nintendo’s adherence to a self imposed code of not wanting to offend anyone left the public with the impression that Nintendo was a very ‘kiddy’ company, in addition to video games being considered a 'childs' market at the time. This mentality rose to the surface at the height of the ‘console wars’ that Sega spurred in North America when Mortal Kombat was released on both the SNES and the Genesis. The SNES version lacked blood and gore, while the Genesis relished in what it spun as a more faithful port of the arcade hit. In the end it didn’t matter which game had blood and which didn’t - the game was violent no matter what. The ensuing parental rage led to the creation of a ESRB in North America - a system that parents would either ignore or be wholly ignorant of for decades.

Last time around the SNES made it to the semi-finals as GBATemp’s most preferred console, so I’d be very surprised to see it garner too many votes this time.

The Phillips CDi
Spawned from a failed deal between Nintendo and Sony, the Phillips CDi was supposed to be the Super Nintendo’s CD add-on to compete with the Sega CD. I guess Nintendo figured that they didn’t need it (they didn’t) and cut Phillips loose.

The CDi is fondly/notoriously remembered for its Mario and Zelda games whose licences they were awarded as part of their deal with Nintendo.

Now… those of you who weren’t really around for this generation might not be able to appreciate the horror that was CD-based console games, a large portion of which fell into the ‘edutainment’ category (it bothers me that edutainment is a word that isn’t being picked up by my spellcheck). CDs meant that the use of Full Motion Video (FVM, usually in MPEG-1) was now possible in video games. And a lot of people who would not normally have made video games decided to start. The CDi, as the only CD-based console I’m going to talk about this generation, will be a herald of the things to come: when the market became flooded once again by mediocre titles.

Outro:

So there you have it. For your consideration, GBATemp, the fourth generation of consoles. I have nothing else to say on the matter. Happy voting!

Finally...a poll where I have actually some knowledge on each of the contenders.

-Never seen the turbografx in real life, but going from emulators, the games weren't that bad. It's my runner-up in the 'worst console', but I have a feeling it's mostly for marketing reasons.
-the mega drive and the SNES really need no introduction. While it was certainly a time where as a kid you couldn't stay neutral in the field, it had to be said that they both had a solid line-up and performed well. The SNES had Mario and Zelda while the mega drive had Sonic and somehow felt more mature (while things like the no-blood mortal kombat were true, it was mostly something used in furious pre-teen arguments).
-the neo geo was something for the rich kids. But I think that anyone my age who even glanced at it through electronic's store windows would admit that the quality of games were above what the consoles were doing. It also serves as the prime example that the best console doesn't win the generation. In the end, it simply cost too much (Christ...at one point, I had an ambition of "when I grow up, I want to buy a neo geo. And MY OWN TV FOR IT". It sorta ended when I calculated just how long I would have to wait until I would be able to buy it on pocket money).

Which leaves the clear winner...
-the CDi. If someone that day and age had said his parents bought him* a turbografx, we would have been interested. Perhaps for mocking it for not being as good as sega/nintendo, but at least for something interesting. If said person would have said he had gotten a CDi, we would feel sorry for him, as getting that console meant that you wouldn't get an ACTUAL console (getting more than one console as a kid was unheard of in my area). Yes...I remember "edutainment". It meant learning instead of having fun. On hindsight, philips probably marketed it to parents, but those were more concerned with the social stigma a CDi would give their child they didn't buy it. Or at least that I know of**. I remember being curious about that 7th guest which looked suspiciously "like a game", but anything else was something to stay away from.
I must admit never having seen or even heard of the atrocities that were Hotel Mario and that "Excuuuuuuuse me"-Zelda game until much later. But by then, the CDi was already dead and buried...

*this was in that time period where girls were these critters you DO NOT SPEAK TO. And generally you didn't, as they didn't do anything interesting anyway.
**Christ...I should ask this at my next re-union. It's quite possible that some of 'em HAD a CDi but wisely kept their mouth shut about it.

Essentially the Mega Drive/Genesis was the unquestionable leader of the generation until the SNES/Super Famicom came along (although nobody *really* knows how many Mega Drive/Genesis systems were actually sold, all we have is estimates), the Turbo Grafx-16/PC Engine showed that there's still a lot of steam in 8-bit and was popular in the east, the Neo Geo was the expensive system that everybody secretly wanted and salivated over, but never reached popularity since it was incredibly expensive... and then there's the CD-i...

The Philips CD-i's problem was that... it just wasn't a good console. It was a a sign of things to come, it was a big step up from VHS in terms of home entertainment, but the whole "gaming" part of the equation became grossly overlooked. Moreover, developers started cutting corners big time - just because you can scan a painting, add a collision map and call it a level doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Long story short, it was more so a proto-DVD player than a console, really... which makes it a terrible console - perfect choice for this kind of a poll.

Maybe it's because it looks like supervision, which is a dumb name for a system (believe me, there are worse ones!), maybe it's because it offended the sensibilities of those who actually owned a Game Boy, of which the SuperVision was a pale comparison.

Click to expand...

Maybe because it's an obscure piece of junk almost no one had ever even heard of and shouldn't have even been in the poll.

This round, I'd be shocked if CDI didn't win (deservedly so out of this bunch), but at least all these systems are ones people heard of before.

BTW, what's with the logo on that TurboGrafx? Looks totally different than the one usually on the system.

Maybe because it's an obscure piece of junk almost no one had ever even heard of and shouldn't have even been in the poll. This round, I'd be shocked if CDI didn't win (deservedly so out of this bunch), but at least all these systems are ones people heard of before.

Click to expand...

If a system was mainsteam, aka "available in your local electronics store" then it has a place in the poll, and the Supervision was mainstream in that sense. It wasn't popular, but it was available, so there.

Ahh finally a poll were I have had some hands on time with all of the consoles in question. (Hell I still own 3 of them now...)

Really it breaks down to well ummm just the CD-i... Anyone who voted for anything else that wasn't joking should be burned at the stake.

ALL of the other consoles are worth owning and have redeeming qualities, I mean sure the NeoGeo is over priced for what it was but oh for that sweet sweet Nam 1975... It's worth it all just for that game alone lol

TG-16 doesn't need anything more than Blazing Lazers to justify it's existence!!! lol (But honestly it had a lot of great games.)

Genesis and Super Nintendo? Where do you even start talking about some of the best games ever made, games that are still fun to play to this day?

That reminds me, I need to schedule some time to complete the Genesis Phantasy Star games.... Was too busy back in the day with my SNES with FFIII, Chrono, Zelda, SMW, Metroid, Castlevania IV to dig too deep into the Genesis (Loved Sonic, Road Rash, Herzog, and some other games though.)

Seriously, there are people here that voted SNES and Mega drive/Genesis as the worst? The worst? AKA all the others were better?

For some people it seems the console war never stopped....

CDi is the obvious choice here, although i don't really believe it is a direct comparison. CDi was more of a media player/entertainment device than a dedicated gaming console.

So if we excluded it and focused on gaming machines, the worst would be chosen between Neo Geo and Turbo Grafx.

Since both had less than stellar gaming libraries*, i would pick Neo Geo since it was far too expensive for what it offered. Seriously, more costly doesn't always mean better product, and you do not always get what you pay for...

*Unless you think stupid arcade games designed to be flashy and difficult in order to get your coins are good games and suitable for a home console...

It came out too late to compete effectively against the 8-bit NES. It was an 8-bit machine with a 16-bit GPU.

It lacked then-advanced A/V output options; nowadays, it almost requires hardware soldering mods to be done.

It was marketed in the US the same way it was marketed in Japan. While NEC & Hudson's marketing strategy to show ads in the major cities was effective in Japan, they tried to do the same thing in a country that is more than 20x its landmass (USA). The only reason I even know of the Turbografx-16 was from magazines like EGM and GamePro.

And in Japan, there were over a dozen re-releases and new models made

As for the Sega Genesis?

Newer models were progressively worse

The add-ons, man. The add-ons.

The original model couldn't give you stereo from the A/V out; it had to be extracted from the headphone jack.

The only way to get the optimal video quality from the machine was by bypassing the stupid video encoder chips and get RGB... which of course was never available here in America.

As for the Neo Geo, simply... it was ludicrously expensive.

For the SNES? The original intent was to have a separate slot to support NES games, which would have been fantastic. The more frustrating thing about the SNES was that it like the majority of Nintendo consoles had yet another mystery expansion port that was never used - or at least, used here in the states.

Finally, for the CD-i... it wasn't even really a console. It seemed like an early multimedia PC that had been converted to a console system.

The 3DO was totally forgotten about in this poll. Maybe that makes it the honorary winner? Actually it was a really good system for its time but was put to an early death by the PSX. I have one that I keep for a very occasional play. The controllers were pretty bad but there were some pretty fun games: Road Rash, NFS (very first one), Return Fire, Way of the Warrior (so bad in so many ways but it has nice graphics and White Zombie), ...

The CD-I wanted to be the "all-in-one entertaiment system" many years before microsoft created this slogan for the xbox one, but it was far too early in matters of the technical possiblities and a poor attempt. It is an easy vote. But I give my respect to the CD-I for having all the features of a modern consoles 20 years ago: games, movies, karaoke, music, internet.